TAMAN ASLI - ENGLISH VERSION

Taman asli

A novel by Cyril Dowling

Enter

Summer 1987. Freshly graduated from high school, Alastair returns to Kuala Lumpur, where he grew up, to start his life. When he arrives at the mansion of Taman Asli, he discovers that his father has just got married to the iconic and mysterious Nerel Grahems.

Noor, heiress to an armaments company, is considered to be "The Woman of the Year" in Malaysia. Secretly, she dreams of escaping her destiny.

Meanwhile, in París, Damien juggles with his odd jobs and escorting , waiting to fulfil his dream: to become an actor.

K.L. meets Paris

They were never meant to meet

And the photo. Their photo. (Chapter 18)

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"Ten years and eight thousand miles tear us apart" (Chapter 10)

FRANCE

WORLD

MALAYSIA

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A novel by Cyril Dowling

MalaYSIA and SINGAPORE

France

World

'"And what does Malaysia mean to you, young man?" "It's the thunderstorms we wait for impatiently. It's nights when, for some unknown reason, cobras take over the city. It's the pain we feel after a bite... It's the blood that makes our jungle hearts beat until they cry...", could I have answered at that moment, had I had the words.

Kemaman

Cameron Highlands

Kuala Lumpur

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Singapore

FRANCE

Malaysia

Deauville

World

She was from Malaysia. She spoke French, but needed to improve. France was odd. So mild seen from afar. So hot in reality. Worse than the jungle perhaps. (Chapter 1)

Villennes sur Seine

Paris

Yvelines

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"Fucking K.L.!"(chapter 5)

KUALA LUMPUR

Central Market

Alliance Française

Putra Congress Center

Kenny Hills

French Residence

Taman Asli

Hamrani Foundation

The Pan Pacific

Taman Duta

The Regent

Lake Gardens

The Shangri La

The Turf

The Faces

1987

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HOtel Shangri La KUALA LUMPUR

Pool House coffee shop

"I'm very grateful, Sir, but this outfit... I mean... I was wondering... this is a Muslim country after all... " "It'll be fine, Mr O'Flender. You can return to your duties. Oh, and don't forget to drop in on Johnny Moothoo again and see what he can do about..." He indicated my thighs with a little twirl of his finger. (Chapter 5)

The Atrium

Banquet Hall

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The Promiscuous Night Club

SingapoRE

"You haven't eaten, nor slept properly, since Singapore " (Chapter 6)

The Raffles

The Dynasty

The Hilton

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Below, life was going on: the bateaux-mouches passed in their bundles of multicoloured languages and wondering strangers; in the background, Notre Dame rested among its birds of prey, and the sky of Paris was still the most beautiful sky in the world, with its vibrant, desperate clouds. Nothing had changed.(Chapter 18)

PARIS

Les Puces

Passage Cottin

Hôtel Royal Monceau

Pigalle

Champs-Elysees

Grand Rex

Belleville

Galerie Vivienne

Hotel Royal Madeleine

Franklin Roosevelt

Palais Royal

25 Rue François Miron

18 rue Dauphine

Rue du Commerce

Rue Madame

Cours Sylvain

La Rotonde

IT IS COMPULSORY TO CLICK ON THE TAGS

THE WORLD

He wondered what Asian wind had been so strong, strong enough to bring the monsoon so far to here. (Chapter 18)

England

France

New York

Madrid

Malaysia

Australia

Polynesia

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AUSTRALIA

In this new world, Alastair had reset the counter to zero, and Nerel taught him the name of every new and unfamiliar thing, every flower, every animal, every star, Echydna, emu, macadamia, kookabura, haemodauraceae, chlamydozaure, wichety and wombat, pointing to each one and making him repeat their name several times, until he imprinted them on his mind and felt the echoes of a new mother tongue. She did that as if she had suddenly realised that it was urgent to make an Australian of him. (Chapter 7)

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Synopsis AND CONTACT

Paris, summer 1988. Who is Noor Hamrani? That's what New York Times reporter Stephen Wapping wonders about his new neighbour, with whom he immediately fell in love: at night, haggard men bustle or fall asleep outside her door, plainclothes policemen watch over the outskirts of her building, from where large sedans with tinted windows take her away to unknown destinations. On the evening of July 14th, Noor and a mysterious friend come to Stephen with a disturbing request: to photograph them, naked and embraced, on the eve of their separation. Twenty years on, Stephen tries to unravel the mystery of that photograph, of those star-crossed lovers: Alastair O'Flender and Noor Hamrani. From Kuala Lumpur's palaces to Paris's underworld, this lavish, moving novel takes the reader on a whirlwind tour of vivid landscapes and characters. At once a tale of impossible love, a novel of education and a tribute to literary classics, Taman Asli will touch you with its singular, twilight beauty.

EDITIONS GOPE - Release NOV 24

FOREIGN RIGHTS: ENGLISH: author's version To ask for the manuscript: Contact: cyril_dowling@yahoo.es OTHER LANGUAGES: translation rights from the publisher: gope@gope-editions.fr

18 Rue Dauphine

They found themselves on the Pont Neuf, and as Alastair extended his arm towards the Rue Dauphine, he told her that was where he lived. They climbed the five stone floors and entered the flat, an empty room in the evening light. She had entered it as one would enter a garden imagined many times, from the outside, and she said "I'll have to give you some flowers". (Chapter 11)

The Faces

The Faces was a place unknown to expatriates, families from Damansara or Kenny Hills, or anyone concerned about their reputation. It was the place where the youth of the underworld came to flaunt their liberation, as well as any new acquisition, a motorbike, a leather jacket, a girl, obtained through hard work or juicy trafficking. Young people who didn't have access to clubs and wanted to shout out their right to exist, the most avant-garde artists would go there, for a moment, knowing that being seen here was already in itself a statement, and a message. (Chapter 6)

Kuala Lumpur

Building a modern city here was a losing battle, it seemed, against the onslaught of the jungle: it descended from the surrounding hills, carrying its share of hissing, howling creatures, and spilled down onto the most central avenues (Chapter 2)

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Les Puces de Clignancourt

But suddenly, the gun went off, as they used to say. After a still morning, the gypsies started spinning balls under the spilt cups, the Jacky Boys started haranguing the arriving crowd, Marie-Chloé hurried back to her shop and Alastair started shouting "Let's go, gentlemen, there's plenty of choice, plenty of stock, plenty of brands!” He found himself unpacking jackets for two or three gentlemen at a time, sending the poorer ones back to the bin outside by telling them "ah no, for less than twenty francs, everything's in the rack outside, Sir" (Chapter 11)

Le Grand Rex

Since the end of winter, when they needed to talk about important things, they had got into the habit of climbing up the ladder through the skylight and lying shoulder to shoulder on the metal roof. Then they would look up at the Paris sky, in the shadow or the light of the Rex's big red letters, and confide in each other.(Chapter 11)

Putra Congress Center

THE MALAY MAIL. K.L's ELLIGIBLE PEOPE by Sun Lin Tang MISS MALAYSIA 1988: AN ELECTION IN SHADES OF FUCHSIA AND THE SCENT OF SCANDAL: Emotions, tears, feathers, sequins and taffeta: the perfect ingredients for the fireworks that was the Miss Malaysia 1988 election last night at the Putra World Trade Centre. First of all, the emotion of the dresses, with a preview of the summer collection by our greatest designers: Bobby Whan, Ahmid Ahmad, Belinda Wanita and Eric Tang. (Chapter 10)

Hotel Shangri La

The Shangri La was still the most beautiful hotel in the city, much to the pride of Mr Rossetti, that of the disco-tropical waiters fretting around the pool terrace, the banquet boys now busy decorating the large reception hall for a wedding themed Bollywood Dreams, and the Promiscuous boys now rehearsing the choreography of Open Your Heart, in a minimalist, galactic outfit designed by Nabila Fairbanks during one night when, drunk, she had played Madonna. (Chapter 9)

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Melbourne - Saint Kilda

There weren't many potential European lovers on the shores of St Kilda, but hordes of indifferent surfers, absorbed by the immense, icy waves. (Chapter 13)

New York

I don't remember anything about Southeast Asia's role in the New World Order. I don't think I was able to think, from the back of the large conference room at the World Trade Center, plunged into darkness with attentive listeners from the four corners of the city, of the country perhaps, to listen to her, this fragile silhouette in front of a large screen, alone in a halo of light. (Chapter 18)

Madrid

She would reassure him. Her trip to Madrid had gone very well. Alongside Serge Dacier, she was in the process of securing the biggest contract of her career, a final coup before retiring and disappearing, at the age of thirty-one, to start living. (Chapter 13)

Passage Cottin

"Ah, but you speak French," asked Lucienne, "because your friend doesn't speak a word... Where do you come from to be so beautiful?” "Malaysia", said Noor. "Ah, you're what do you call? Malaysian ?” " Blimey Lucienne, everytime I clap eyes on ya I'm getting the Malaysias! ", said one of the men at the bar. Lucienne immediately went over to give him another slap in the face with her tea towel. "Malaysian, Malaysian does my face look Malaysian ?" she replied, imitating Arletty, as she passed behind the counter. She ignored the three losers at the bar and looked at the sad couple while wiping the glasses. This was a break up, she could tell. (Chapter 12)

The Regent

I had had a long swim in the Regent's pool, so close to Noor's offices, and to Irene Along, who must have been collecting press articles between phone calls, proud to hand her over to a reporter from Vogue France International the next day. I would not try to see her again. Never, I tried to persuade myself, as the clouds gathered above me and the last swimmers and tourists deserted the scene, commenting on the first huge drop of rain that had just fallen spot on, right on top of their heads. (Chapter 9)

The Promiscuous Club

She didn't seem surprised to see me, disappeared back into her cloud of smoke, and emerged holding out a banknote that she stuck into the elastic belt of my shorts. "Here you are, my darling, it's good that you're making some pocket money, but beware of the dirty old men..." she said.

"Auntie Latifah, it's me, Alastair O'Flender...Alas..." "I know, darling." In the shadow of her decline, I had never seen her so sincere. "Does your mum know you're a gogo dancer ?” "No. But I'm not really a gogo, I'm a trainee...” (Chapter 5)

The Dynasty

As I opened the curtains of my bedroom, I saw the landscape below, crawling out of its night sheets, and I stared at it with my misty eyes for a long moment, smoothing my face, breathing in the palm of my hand. My father appeared, impeccable and determined. He looked at me as I remained silent. "Did you have a good night?" he asked coldly. I didn't answer. "I obviously underestimated your powers of seduction, but above all your thoughtlessness, immaturity and lack of intelligence. Look at you. You're pitiful, really. This chapter is closed forever.” "I'll never see her again. I'll keep... “ "Exactly". (Chapter 4)

Paris

he told me that the skies of Paris are the most beautiful in the world, even with their clouds, and it didn't take much more for my heart to melt like snow in the sun, like that of a teenage girl in front of her high school idol. He has written our names in a heart, with a blue felt-tip. (Chapter 16)

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Cameron Highlands

No one could stop me dreaming of my first love, of the wild mountains of Cameron Highlands, the sweetness of the tea plantations where I liked to disappear, the coolness of the rivers... And that's how I came to love religion. And the more I was punished, the more I prayed to God to give me the strength to love him like that, with the heart of a teenage girl recovering from her first heartbreak. (Chapter 11)

Hôtel Royal Madeleine

"Je montais sur le porte bagage de son vélo et nous longions la Seine jusqu’à l’hôtel Royal Madeleine, le visage crispé dans le givre des brumes humides. En pédalant, il chantait à tue-tête les chansons italiennes de son walkman. Puis nous passions une demi-heure à parler au coin de la rue de l’hôtel où il travaillait avant qu’une horloge ne sonne les douze coups de minuit et le début de son service, et que le jeune cycliste parisien en jean et blouson de cuir ne se transforme en gardien de la nuit, dans son costume de velours noir". (Chapitre 8)

Champs Elysées

"And now, here I am!" he announced in a louder voice, as if he were no longer talking to his sister's friend but to the two young Parisian girls passing by, to the whole of Paris in fact. He exuded life and was, in all his naivety, so sure of himself that Alastair wondered how Parisians, well especially Parisian women, could have lived so many years without ever noticing the absence of Andrew Along. (Chapter 14)

Rue Madame

Leila blew out a cloud of smoke which she immediately coughed away, blushing, drunk with her new life as a heroine in Paris, ready for any outrage, any transgression, now the author of erotic stories 'à la Anne Arno', minimalist and filled with a thousand pleasures, already adored by a blond Parisian with steely eyes, a 'bad boy' à la française. Reckless. She felt drunk, happy and reckless. (Chapter 14)

Central Market

"You're pathetic", he said, "look at you. You've been seing her again”. "I haven’t!” "Don't lie," he said, raising his voice again and taking another step towards me. "I know you saw her again. You were seen on Jalan Ampang, and at the Central Market, a young white guy in shorts and trainers, that was you”. (Chapter 10)

Palais Royal

And here she was, in his home, so close to him, she no longer impressed him the way she had, in her mystery and in the flashes of the photographers, in her silences, the night they had kissed for the first time, in Singapore. "For the first time?" she asked, looking him straight in the eye and laughing. "Yes," he said." "Because there’ll be others ?" Then she leaned towards him, and he thought she was going to kiss him, but she stroked his lower lip with her fingertips, to remove a trace of imaginary dust, of pollen. (Chapter 11)

The Hilton Singapore

We ran down the grand staircase of the Hilton, past chandeliers overloaded with crystal candles, through doors and into a nightclub, almost empty, yet vibrant with the celebrations above. She put her hands on my shoulders and looked at me as if I had just appeared and she was seeing me for the first time. "What brought you to me?” "It is you who came to me, in your night-coloured dress, Dateen Hamrani. Why?" (Chapter 4)

The Hamrani Foundation

The cranes are advancing, the past is being destroyed, and hotels are being built everywhere, hotels, so that the she-devil and people like you can go and revel in lust and lechery! The foundation was the idea of the she-devil's mother, that Manfredi woman, supposedly to help orphans. If you'd been born at the time you'd know that the Dato didn't need that, you'd remember that he financed - Allah protect him in his paradise - the hiz hadj of more than two thousand Malay pilgrims, including me. (Chapter 5)

Les Yvelines

France, where teenagers cooly prepare for their exams, lying on the moss by the stream, or reciting their lessons to each other on the edge of the old wash-house, wiggling their toes in the icy water. Within a radius of sixty kilometres around Paris, such havens could still be found, and when Alastair O'Flender was out of breath or on the brink of a precipice, he felt the need to return to this maternal world, his origins, at a time when he was still unknown, still French. (Chapter 12)

Kemaman

Where Malaysia had lost all trace of human presence, I left it on a beached tree trunk and continued on my way, naked, towards the darkness. I walked for a long time along this infinite coastline, gradually settling into the rhythm of my steps, feeling the sand beneath my feet and the night air enveloping me. Kuala Lumpur seemed so far away, like a reef at the other end of the sea, against which fascinated destinies would collide and sink.(...). I moved forward, naked and blinded by the last rays of sun, my breathing increasing - suffocating those thoughts - and I let myself return, in the depths of that night, into my wilderness. (Chapter 6)

Taman Asli

I walked back down to Taman Asli along the road and down its dark alley to the centre of the house, which had become the empty heart of my childhood. I lay down on the cool marble, arms stretched out, and listened to the breathing of the bygone time, with its ghosts, their slow wails echoing along the cracks towards the forsaken park. My eyes stung. My throat was dry. My pulse pounded in fiery rebellion. My body was still aching from the run. My skin burning from the jungle’s scratches. I was lying at the centre of my life, and I was lost. (Chapter 10)

Alliance Française

"When were you at the French school...", I asked, looking for her, in my memories, on the lawns that surrounded the old bungalow behind the Alliance Française. "Oh wait... from six to eight years old..." "We just missed each other so, I couldn't have forgotten...” "Wait, that was in ... eighty, seventy-nine, eighty...” "I was there..." We were almost out of breath from the flood of past encounters, from our surprised laughter... "I don't remember you, what's your name? "Da Costa, Leila Da Costa...” "And yet there were only three of us in the class..." (Chapter 3)

Pigalle

He had been told that in Pigalle, nymphs would walk naked in the street, between the poplars, offering themselves to the first Apollo who came along, and if Andrew was anything now, it was definitely an Apollo. (Chapter 14)

Rue du Commerce

"It's the first time I've heard her sing." When she looked up, it was always at him. And he recognised the song, even though he didn't know the words, he didn't understand everything, but all he had to do was close his eyes for a moment to see the rollers of the China Sea stroke tenderly, in golden foam, the ochre beaches of Pahang. (Chapter 13)

Belleville

It was there - in the centre of her impressive collection of spices and herbs - some of which grew on the windowsill, mixed with what the neighbour thought were, she was sure, cannabis plants "or at least hemp" - that Joanna had cooked a huge teryaki fish for her brother, and the Japanese flavours had spread throughout the flat, the eclectic objects brought back from their travels, like this Balinese puppet or this Singaporean cat that kept waving, all the time. (Chapter 11)

Le Cours Sylvain

They were originally going to audition together, that was the initial pact between two strangers who had bumped into each other by chance on the corner of Quai d'Anjou. But fate, in its own way, had sealed a much more complex deal. There had been the sharing, the intimacy, in all its cruelty, then the nights sleeping side by side, the mutual challenge of conquering the woman they loved, so many past contracts that had followed one another without them ever thinking about tomorrow.(Chapter 14)

Résidence de France

The lights from the terrace were dying on the edge of the pond, while behind me laughter was beginning to be tipsy, a few confidences glided along the edges of the shadows, strange and secret, barely concealed by meaningless, spirited jokes, and vibrant emotions were rising from the depths of a tender gaze and a glass of champagne. I saw my father detach himself from the picture and announce, "Come, I'll introduce you to Noor Hamrani". "No, I can't," I replied. "Not today”. Of course I knew who she was. I had seen her beautiful face many times in local magazines, congratulating herself on some entrepreneurial success, some million-dollar contract, or simply accepting the promising new title of "Woman of the Year". ( Chapter 2)

Franklin Roosevelt

At the Franklin Roosevelt correspondence, Noor and Alastair disappeared down a long corridor. When Andrew and I saw them no more, we retraced our steps before deciding that they must be further ahead. They were waiting for us, motionless and identical, impassive in the crowd advancing towards the exits. Their eyes were sad, as if an abrupt revelation had ambushed them at the bend of a corridor and seized them. (Chapter 1)

French Polynesia

In Polynesia, George slept most of the time, as if he had finally found the Pacific island he had been searching for, in order to recover from the density of the last fifty years. (Chapter 7)

The Atrium

In the coolness of the atrium, an elegant assembly gathered every Wednesday for the unmissable High Tea and Fashion - exuberant datins in search of modesty, depressed Europeans looking for something a little less eighties, one or two young Malaysians back from the Faces, and waiting for nightfall, slumped on the chintz sofas, notebook in hand, waiting for a model to appear and flaunt at them the latest trend, the latest craze. (Chapter 9)

The Pan Pacific

The Pan Pacific, a new glass and steel palace, was located at the entrance to Chow Kit, and I decided to walk there from Taman Asli. On the jungle-lined road, you felt surrounded by the nightly barking of stray dogs and, in monsoon season like the one now beginning, the muffled rustling of snakes and rats in the damp earth of the ditches. Rare cars whizzed past, frightening the few colonies of macaques that had come out to enjoy the relative coolness at the side of the road. The storm that had been brewing since midday finally broke, and I ended the trip running along the vegetation. "Take off your shirt", Su Ping said to me as she went back to the phone. I went to get a towel from the bathroom. Su Ping's 'office' was a deluxe double comfort room on the eighteenth floor of the hotel. (Chapter 3)

Condobolin

"My name is Nerel Grahems, and if like me you are the son or daughter of Mary and Patrick Grahems and were torn from your family as a child in Condobolin New South Wales, contact me. " (Chapter 13)

Oxfordshire, England

The editors had sent me to London for the premiere of Othello at the Globe Theatre, and I had taken the opportunity to offer them an exclusive report on the making of the film 'The Arden Papers', in Oxfordshire, a report which would have seemed unthinkable at the time, but which I was sure I would get, thanks to the approval and support of its leading star, Alastair O'Flender. (Chapter 7)

25 Rue François Miron

I smile now as I remember him, shy, in 1988, taking off his clothes slowly, and stretching out his long, frail body on the cool parquet floor of the rue François Miron apartment, watching that woman undress in turn, as if surprised ; seeing her lie down beside him, turning to embrace her, breathing in her long jay-like hair, closing his eyes with perhaps the intuition that this moment, this soft breath, would be fixed in eternity. (Chapter 1)

Brisbane, Queensland

Today, little Bobby was the Premier of Queensland and he was running as the leader of the Labor Party in the federal general election. It was said that he would be the Prime Minister of Australia, and that's what had saved her. And here she was, in Sydney, and George would be back in a moment. And Alastair was in Paris, with Noor Hamrani. And somewhere in New Caledonia, twenty-one men had been shot dead. (Chapter 14)

Villennes sur Seine

After Paris, it was a world of freshness and weeping willows leaning lovingly over the Seine, with elegant half-timbered houses around a leafy square, an old-fashioned bandstand crushed by lilacs and wisteria, next to a small pond where a few swans glided. (Chapter 15)

The Raffles

The more the years went by, the more the Raffles Hotel fell into disrepair, but to come back and walk in the coolness of its galleries, to run one’s fingers over the leaves of the traveller's trees that lined them, to see the old chequered black and white tiles pass under one’s feet, was each time a step back in time. There were travellers who marvelled at the sight, and old-fashioned characters who chuckled as they greeted the red-silk turbaned doormen; lacy old English ladies, and pale-skinned old Indian gentlemen in impeccably starched collars, rediscovering, maybe, their impossible pre-war romances. (Chapter 4)

Deauville

He had finally reached the sea. At the end of the road. Not the one he had imagined, not the China Sea beyond a field of rubber trees and a forest of coconut palms, to the East, just a large stretch of grey sand lined with striped cabins, to the West. (Chapter 17)

Kenny Hills

I ran through the woods of Kenny Hills, into the night: I ran to catch my breath, to get my heartbeat back in order. I ran as I made my way through the night cries, the barks, the whistles, the hissings, all of them as much mine as the branches that whipped at me as I passed, their thorns making their final mark on my chest, my arms, my legs. I wasn't afraid of any pitfalls, snakes or insects; I was back to being the spider-infected man, strong with all his nights of fever. Only a native could do that: run bare-legged and bare-chested through the last patches of forest, as if seeking to return to the primitive world I had come out of, at the beginning. (Chapter 10)

Banquet Hall

I went down into the basement with the stocky man, and we came back up with huge rolls of pink ribbon, which we had to tie just about everywhere we could, around the curtains, on every chair and at the neck of every bottle. Then a huge, heavy red carpet had to be rolled out and slid across the mirrored floor, centimetre by centimetre, until it was perfectly aligned under the watchful eye of the banqueting chef. I drowned myself in all these activities that left me no time to think, as if in a penance from which I would emerge atoned, and wiser. (Chapter 5)

Galerie Vivienne

"You intimidate me now," she said. "You intimidate me a little because I feel I could fall a little... for you". So she got up and began to walk slowly along the gravel path towards the back of the park, and he followed her. They found themselves in the Galerie Vivienne, where the shops were closed. Under the sunny glass roof, she was bathed in a diaphanous, unreal light. An adagio, Albinioni's, escaped from an unknown place to slip beneath their every step, and she intertwined her fingers in Alastair's. (Chapter 11)

La Rotonde

Sometimes a wink, a surprising, daring smile, might have made the ladies blush if they had been less mature, but they readily accepted them because they overestimated their beauty: they deserved everything, and the only impact of the greedy provocations of these young men for a fee was only visible in a slightly more nervous swirl of spoon or straw, in a cocktail glass or a cup of tea. Damien had his clientele there. (Chapter 8)

Pool House Coffee Shop

What was written, predictable, in the logical continuity of those incarnations, happened. On a mistless morning that same week, Noor Hamrani came to the Pool House Coffee Shop for a business meeting. My colleagues were bustling about, exchanging hurried invectives in Bahasa, when I realised the object of their concern and emotion.(Chapter 3)

Taman Duta

I reached the edge of the road overlooking the Taman Duta valley, out of breath. As I emerged from the foliage, I looked at the new houses one by one, each with its lights shining faintly, in damp halos, in the evening air, under a moonless night. I had run to this destination without knowing where I was really going. In one of those peaceful, airy houses she lived. (Chapter 10)

Lake Gardens

The lake was invisible in the darkness of the sleepy park, and it was impossible to recognise the elements of water and land, between the sodden lawn and the sand of the shore. Sliding my lips over her belly, I asked her if she was afraid of animals and she said no before arching her hips. (Chapter 6)

The Turf

When Faizal opened his eyes, the cobra had disappeared. He told us to relax. "You see what your chick quacking does, boys, it attracts cobras in heat". Time had passed and I climbed the wooden stairs four by four to find Su Ping. One of the women who had called out to her earlier with cries of exctasy said to me, holding up her finger in front of my eyes, and in a hoarse, prophetic voice that she had left with William, the planter from Johor. As I was about to say goodbye to the gang of young people who had invited me, Leila asked me how I was getting back to Kenny Hills and if I wanted to share a taxi as the boys had decided to continue 'wasting their night'. (Chapter 3)

Sydney

Alastair had set out to conquer this new world, like a pioneer, feeling buoyed up by the vigour of this Southern spring, while Malaysia, somewhere, was drowning, disappearing under the excesses of the monsoon that it had itself created. (Chapter 7)

Hôtel Royal Madeleine

I'd get on the luggage rack of his bike and we'd ride along the Seine to the Hôtel Royal Madeleine, our faces scrunched up in the frost of the damp mist. As we pedalled, he sang at the top of his lungs to the Italian songs on his walkman. Then we'd spend half an hour talking on the street corner before a clock struck twelve and his shift began, and the young Parisian cyclist in jeans and a leather jacket turned into a night watchman, in his black velvet suit." (Chapter 7)

Hôtel Royal Monceau

I can still feel the emotion, which returns today, of not being able to put my arm through the curtains, of standing on the threshold of a porte cochère, as I wait in the lobby of the Royal Monceau, to be shown to the suite of Alastair O'Flender, back for a few days in his native city. Twenty years later. Will he remember me? - Does he even know that I was the first to photograph him? Does he know that I've always kept this photo to myself, even though I could have sold it many times and made a fortune; that I've remained faithful to that moment, that secret. (Chapter 1)